February 28, 2007

Don was aghast when I said I wanted a regular drip coffee maker to replace the recently departed, and not a French press. "I thought you were a connoisseur," he chided. "No," I replied. "I'm a drug addict." Took me this long to find a maker under 50 bucks. This was $17.08 at one of the snazzier shops in town. Getting pretty close to my shopping merit badge.

OK so, yeah, the Gobi.

I’d been prepping for Tsagaan Sar. I’d gotten little gifts lined up for people. I had Erka teach me all the ritual greetings. Though I’m not the world’s most social creature, I’d steeled myself for endless rounds of visits with little common language; I’d cleared out my hollow legs for the perpetual introduction of buuz, the ubiquitous Mongolian mutton dumpling, and gallons of suutei tsai, the equally ubiquitous milk tea.

We arrived at the monastery about 8, and luckily one of the young women in the car spoke English, complete with British accent. One of the lamas, Baatar, greeted us at the new guesthouse and I asked, “What’s the program for today?” He said the lamas would gather at the temple at 10. Perfect. Time for a little nap.

I sauntered over to the temple at 9:55, figuring there’d be day-long chanting to create auspicious conditions for the new year. By 10:20, my only company remained a sharp, cold wind, so I returned to my room.

I saw people wandering about out my window (about 12 families live on the monastery grounds). I imagined they were visiting one another, but I had no idea what was expected of me. As a monk, I’m trained not to go anywhere that I’m not invited. No invitations came. I went nowhere.

By mid-afternoon, I was making good headway through A Concise History of China and I was awfully grateful for the surplus snacks from my train ride. They staved off what would have been my particularly ignoble place in history – to be the first person ever to starve during Tsagaan Sar.

On my way out, though, I got buttonholed by Baatar, who conveyed me to his family’s ger. The buuz flowed, and starvation became a little less imminent. Among the small gifts I was given, Baatar handed me a DVD with no explanation. Hmm.

Overcoming my shyness, I wandered from there to Enkhjargal’s. As soon as my head popped in, it seemed that Enkhjargal was trying to get my attention across a broad valley.

“GONCHIG OO! COME IN! SIT! EAT! DRINK!”

I came in and sat and ate and drank.

The funniest detail I noticed was the t-shirt sported by one of his daughters, maybe 14 years old. It was dominated by a big red heart that looked like it was rubbed with a thick piece of chalk on a sidewalk. Emblazoned across the heart were the following declaration and plea: “I am NOT a Terrorist! Please don’t arrest me.” Took her at her word and let her be.

The topic Enkhjargal found endlessly remarkable and (like everything else) shout-worthy was his mother’s gift to me of camel milk last November. Even boiled me up a bowl of it. That was when I realized I’d had a Stupid City Boy Moment last time. I thought the milk was warm because it had been freshly milked. Duh. It was warm because, for hygiene regions, it had recently been boiled. But it sure was just as delicious as before.

It became an ongoing linguistic joke, too. Temee means “camel” and suu means “milk.” To make it possessive, you add -nii. Thus, temeenii suu is “camel milk.” Well, Enkhjargal’s strengths lean a bit more toward bellowing than listening. No matter how many times I repeated the English for him, we finally had to settle on a carefully enunciated “kah-mel-nii meelk.” Which was fine with me, cuz it was funny every time he said it.

Enkhjargal made it clear that I was to accompany them to visit Grandma that evening, and about 7 I was summoned. I mentioned Enkhjargal has ten kids, right? And one beat-up Chinese jeep. He drove, his wife riding shotgun with two or three small charges. I was placed in on the back bench with no fewer than eight children, most stacked three deep.

I have no earthly idea how we got to Grandma’s ger, as we drove for many kilometers through identical saxaul bush scrub. But soon we arrived, and as we all piled out, one of the younger boys immediately took a whiz in the sand (didn't notice if he wrote his name). In fact, the air was permeated with L’Essence du Whiz and I had another Stupid City Boy Moment, thinking, “Huh. Does everyone just whiz right out the front door into the yard?”

In we piled. Grandma’s face, aged by the Gobi elements 20 years past the 67 she was said to be, creased into a perpetual smile as she shoveled food at everyone. At one point I was offered cole slaw. I asked if there might be a fork. All heads turned to me in laughter – Stupid City Boy! – and I just nodded and used my ten natural utensils.

Grandma must’ve had a windmill (Enkhjargal does) because she lives beyond the middle of nowhere and had a couple lights burning, as well as a small TV and DVD player. So, what else do you do in a tent in the Gobi but check out the DVD you got for Tsagaan Sar? Turns out it was a music video filmed at Khamariin Khiid. One of Mongolia’s singers many young male tenors warbled some tale of the monastery that apparently involved a handsome young lama who fell for a local lovely (and she for him) and tried to run away in a fit of passion, only to be foiled by a stern elder lama, played perfectly by Baatar. Smash hit. We played it twice.

Piling out again, once my eyes adjusted to the starlit yard, I discovered my City Boy mistake about the source(s) of its pungent aroma. All around were shifting and slumbering camels, sheep, goats, and dogs.

Later, to my great consternation, I found that the setting I chose on my camera to take a couple family portraits – “Indoor/Party,” which seemed pretty logical – rendered the pictures a blurry mess. Maybe that is logical, though, since that’s pretty much how I used to come home from indoor parties. Anyway, I did get some other good snaps, which I’ll share with more Tsagaan Sar stories, in which I move out, and things look up.

February 26, 2007

Still working on, i.e. mulling over between toenail clips, part deux of the Gobi trip. But until that marinates good 'n' tender, and so as not to lose you in your insatiable quest for new stimulation, lemme direct you to a coupla kool klicks.

First off, Cuzzin Ryan dedicates the title of a whole post to one of my multiple online personalities, Cuzzin Tom. How come? Well, {'hem} cuz last Saturday she, the Doyenne of the Dulaan Project, (mostly) fearlessly waded into a sea of 65 Seattle Girl Scouts who, for the Scouts' "World Thinking Day," had chosen to focus for a whole day on none other than Mongolia! Do go pay a visit to my dear cuz, who in her inimitably hilarious style (it was she who inspired me to start this silly blog two years ago) chronicles the marvelously creative ways these girls learned a bit about this land and people, and did some good to boot.

Also last Saturday, it was a Mongol-palooza at my home temple, KPC Maryland. Ani Aileen, our hard-workin' archivist and impresaria of Palyul Productions, was on the scene to snap some pics. She's quickly posted the best at her Phanfare site. There you'll see Baasan Lama (shown above) greeted in high traditional style by Tsagaan Ovgon, the "White Old Man," before he joins members of the DC Mongol community for New Year's prayers. Also, Jalair Dovdon Batbayar is shown creating his exquisite calligraphy in the classical Mongol script. One was inked for my teacher, with her name, Jetsunma, between the words for "health" and "long life." You'll also get a peek at DODR commenter Ariel, who was one of the organizers of Batbayar's tour. Well? Go look!

February 25, 2007

This Buddhist stuff may be working, because I’m beginning to suspect that there’s a pretty broad gap between what I think is happening, and what’s actually happening. As usual, the Gobi Desert provided the milieu in which this faint light in my head has begun to glow.

The trip started in a scramble. I had procrastinated about packing (cue my mother: “Oh, there’s a big surprise”) until the morning before my train was to leave. Now, I have this $6.99 travel alarm clock that’s gone with me everywhere. And the battery in it has lasted so long – somewhere in the neighborhood of three years – that I was beginning to consider it a Hanukah-like miracle. Until this morning, when I needed to get up. Of course that’s when it chose to crap out. Thank goodness for the rising of the sun.

Much wild running about ensued, making the animals nuts, but I managed to plop myself into my compartment just before the Sainshand train lurched south. My companions were a woman who for all the world looked like a gypsy – I soon found out she was the product of a Mongol/Russian alliance – her two young girls and baby boy. We all chatted as far as my Mongolian would allow, with assists from the dictionaries I brought along. I learned that they live in a small Gobi town called Airag. This struck me as quite funny when I imagined a conversation translated fully into English:

“Bat, meet Dorj.”

“Please ta meetcha, Dorj. Where ya from?”

“Oh, I hail from a little burg down in the desert, name of Fermented Mare’s Milk. Heard of it?”

I also learned a more sobering fact. Mama told me she operates a machine at the local fluorite mine there, which she indicated was very hard, very toxic. For her labor, they pay her 55,000 tugrigs a month. When this is converted into dollars, it means that, with no discernable father about, she supports herself and her three children on $47.21 a month. I couldn’t fathom this and asked her how it was even possible. Without rancor, she simply replied, “Friends help.”

As I mentioned, this time I opted to travel without a translator to force myself to speak more Mongolian. Simple conversation was pretty easy in the train, but mutual understanding would not necessarily characterize the rest of the trip.

My first clue should have been the call I got from Altangerel while on the train platform seeking out my car. We exchanged pleasantries, and then I asked, “OK, we’re meeting tomorrow morning at nine to go to Khan Bayan Zurkh Mountain like you said, right?”

“Nine?”

“Right, yeah, nine. Right?”

“No. Not nine. Five.”

“Five? In the morning?”

“Right, five.”

“We’re leaving at five.”

“Yeah. To go to the mountain. Five.”

“Um, roger that. See you then.”

Good thing my cell phone has an alarm function.

True to his word, Altangerel’s son picked me up at five the next morning. Off we sped into the dusty murk toward Khan Bayan Zurkh, the legendary mountain abode of the Gobi lama two incarnations before Danzan Ravjaa, Jamyan Danzan. There were already dozens of desert vehicles in the parking lot when we arrived. We joined other dark shapes crunching along the gravel path upslope to a glowing pile of embers where a bonfire had recently blazed. I greeted the Khamariin Khiid lamas I knew and we joined other local poobahs around the fire – including the provincial governor who, if he recognized me from when we met in November, offered no indication – for a rather unspectacular offering ritual to begin Tsagaan Sar, the “White Month” of the new year. One woman arranged offerings for everyone, consisting of a khatag (ceremonial silk scarf) on which was placed a large, concave, oval cookie Mongols call boov. Once a hunk of white cheese was arranged in the center of that, each person in turn offered theirs onto the fire. That was it. Nobody tried to explain it to me, but I did get a decent picture:

I also recalled Don Croner (who’s posted a nice, photo-rich tale of his own pre-dawn excursion for Tsagaan Sar rituals closer to UB at the Khiimoryn Ovoo) telling me before I left about a nova just discovered in the Scorpius constellation. I don’t know the night sky very well – there were, like, three visible stars where I grew up in New Jersey – but he had told me to look over the southern horizon. Scorpius would be just to the right of Jupiter, the largest light object there. Darn if it wasn’t right where he said it’d be, looking just like it ought to look. Gazing at that constellation at that moment felt significant, considering how the scorpion is one of the central symbols associated with Danzan Ravjaa (see sidebar if you click this link). The astronomical world showed mild interest, but now they’re all going ape because a second nova has appeared in the same patch of sky. Both novae are visible with the naked eye.

Taking in the Gobi stars also reminded me of an odd comment from the mother on the train that I didn’t fully get until just then. She had pointed to the handful of freckles sprinkled across her eldest daughter’s face and said, “Those are the Seven Buddhas.” I got it on the mountain and confirmed it later – to Mongolians, the stars that create what we call the Big Dipper are for them the Seven Buddhas. The mother considered it auspicious that her daughter had seven freckles roughly arrayed the same way on her face. Says something interesting about sacred and ordinary relationships with the natural world, doesn’t it? To Mongols these stars reflect an ancient lineage of supremely enlightened beings. We’re reminded of a tin cup.

After the offering ritual concluded, Altangerel approached me and I thought he said that he had to go back to Sainshand and do some official things with the governor and he’d catch up with me later. That’s not actually what he said, but thinking so I transferred my bags to a car heading for the monastery and thus began my strange entry into deep Gobi Tsagaan Sar. Tune in soon to hear what happened.

February 24, 2007

Can someone please explain to me why over the past couple days DODR has gotten several dozen hits from all over the United States by people searching for "the Mongolian word for red"? Is it in a crossword puzzle or something? Anyway, it's "ulaan." It forms part of the capital city's name, Ulaanbaatar (frequently written with the Russian misspelling as "Ulan Bator"). This means "Red Hero." The Commies thought the Mongols had come up with a righteous revolutionary name in the early 20's (capital was called Urga, or Ikh Khuree, before that), but I heard the Buddhist lamas put one over on them. "Red Hero" -- "Pawo Marpo" in Tibetan -- has a mystical meaning related to the Chakrasamvara mandala. Now ya know.

February 23, 2007

Yes, I got back from my Tsagaan Sar Gobi adventure this morning, and yes I’ve got ripping yarns and eye-popping pics and brilliantly hilarious and poignant Mongolian cultural observations to share, but no, tough noogies, you can’t have them today.

Today was devoted to sacred tasks – laundry, hosing the accumulated grit off my person, dopey errands, and re-bonding with my critters through our favorite group activity, the afternoon nap. It also takes a surprising amount of time to go through the images I take, and fiddle with them in the photo software so you can be much more impressed with my picture-taking skills than they deserve.

And anyway, I’m just in no mood to write as there’s been a death in the family. Much to her distress, it happened on Miss Lisa’s watch just as she began her apartment-sitting gig here. She tried everything – striving to interpret every gasp and wheeze, carefully monitoring fluids, consulting experts and, finally, resorting to anxious prayer. But it was just no use. After eighteen months Otis, my crappy Chinese coffee maker, coughed weakly and passed from this world. We’re all sitting shiva. There's brisket and gravlox on the sideboard.

So, for all these reasons, no Gobi post today. I hope you understand. Hey…hey! Crying’s not going to do you a bit of good, you know. Honestly, act your age. You’re behaving just like this blog.

And by that I mean that exactly two years ago today I tapped out my first post, “Auspicious Launch” (which is so dull I can't believe anyone kept reading after that), and slung Dreaming of Danzan Ravjaa out into cyberspace.

Stern Warning: Anyone who types “Happy Blogiversary” below will have their comments sent for review to the Committee for the Removal of Intolerable Neologisms and Gag-inducing Expressions (CRINGE), I promise you. “Blog” is not a clever or funny substitute for “ann.” It's not even clever or funny because it's not. It’s icky. I’m sorry, but it’s time you knew.

Anyway, I figured my mother, immediate family, and a handful of temple members might occasionally follow the adventures of a drunk punk turned Buddhist monk on walkabout in Mongolia, cracking wise when not succumbing to fits of crankiness, and spending baffling amounts of time behind binoculars staring at birds. Boy did I misjudge what an eccentric and peculiar world this is.

TypePad offered some basic stats from DODR’s inception. After I click “save,” this will mark 282 posts, in response to which you blabbermouths have left 1752 comments. As of this writing there have been 90,854 page views for an overall average of nearly 124 a day. That's all that program monitored.

But wait – I have not yet begun to reveal my statistical geekiness! At the beginning of this year, my RSS service, FeedBurner, added much more complete site stats. So far this year, DODR has been receiving an average of 150 unique visitors a day and we’ve had people checking in from at least 58 countries other than the US (we’re big in the former Eastern Bloc!). Not too shabby for a blog that occupies as narrow a niche as this, eh? As far as my paisanos, there have been numerous hits from a maddening 49 of our 50 States – um, Alaska, where’s the love? You never call, you never write...

Now, have all these folks dropped by because of their intense curiosity about the post-Communist revival of the Nyingmapa lineage of Vajrayana Buddhism in the Eastern Gobi Desert of Outer Mongolia? Or steppe-land avifauna? Or naughty puppies and kitties?

Not hardly.

I’ve probably published well over 300,000 words here, much of which constitute aimless wanderings well away from the subjects at hand. They're held in a permanent archive at TypePad World Headquarters, just to the left of the minty urinal cakes in the storage closet. This means that DODR pops up on the monitors of some very strange people who have typed some very strange things to run through various search engines in the hopes of satisfying their very strange compulsions. And because I care so very much about your entertainment and ongoing education, I have been compiling the oddest phrases that have beamed in to DODR from the remote outer fringes of our human family.

I had originally thought to offer this list with my own wry bon mots, but maybe I’ll leave that to y’all. Which of the following (which I swear all caused linkage to this site and are presented exactly as they appeared) are your favorites, and what do you imagine the person was thinking as he or she typed them out? Behold:

• bhutan travel the procrastination stunning plan

• jokes and comics about PET scans

• parrot aviaries (pictures)swimwear (from South Africa)

• bhutan guru rinpoche Vermont

• buddha under buddy tree

• doing thing to make you smarter

• kill buddha transgender

• coot recipe

• big tit Buddhist

• buddhist monk sock

• woodpecker prison group

• Christianity Main Tenants

• eurasian toothache

• pig load out shoots

• buddhist seven bowels to offer water

• people in ct naked named donnalee

• Lamas syphilis spit

Oh, and you in Singapore? Yes you, the one who searches almost every single stupid day for "ani sarah thresher" and visits the same post from spring of 2005 where I wrote about her teaching in Darkhan (I am not linking it for you!), would you please either seek professional help or just bookmark the dadblasted thing?

All yuks aside, I’ve truly loved creating DODR these past two years and offering a window into this marvelous land for those of you who may never board a plane clutching a ticket stamped “Ulaanbaatar” (and even for some of you who have). The most rewarding part has been the internet’s incredible ability to attract such a diverse, global circle of virtual friends. I’m crazy about all of you (mmm, except perhaps the former French ambassador's wife...though she brought our beloved Christian to us!) and hope you stay on board. The way this year is shaping up, it’s going to be the most extraordinary yet.

February 21, 2007

Still deep in the Gobi, but you'd never know I was a cave-dweller there the last time I visited. I forgot a number of things, including a flashlight, so I dumped out of the monastery after two days so I could enjoy more than one candlepower after 7pm, a hot shower, and a room where people didn't burst in without knocking all day long. Milarepa is smiling ruefully and shaking his head in whichever pure land he currently resides.

I did have two slightly more serious reasons for hitching up the camel and coming into town. I heard that one of the boys we recently sent to India had become ill, perhaps seriously enough to merit a trip to the hospital. And while I'm doing OK without a translator, I couldn't work out the details of this and wanted to fire off an inquiring email to India. His name is Amgalan. Please keep him in your prayers.

Also, I wanted to be here for the arrival of Erka and Sharavdorj, expected momentarily, so we could coordinate tomorrow's symbolic offering of the Nyingma texts.

All that aside, I hope by now DODR has piqued your curiosity about Mongolia and its culture. If so, and you live anywhere within striking distance of the DC area, you want to block out some time this Saturday afternoon, Feb. 24, round up the chilluns, and make ready for a road trip. I'm thrilled to inform that Baasan Lama is in America and has agreed to preside over a special prayer and blessing event at KPC Maryland tagged to Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian edition of Asian New Year. Baasan Lama, as longtimereadersmay recall, is a genuine hero of Mongolian democracy. He was at the forefront of those peacefully agitating for the reforms of 1990, especially the reinstatement of religious freedom. He's also a wonderfully charismatic lama and sure to draw a large crowd of Mongol expats. This event will take place between 3-5pm (be prepared for "Mongolian Standard Time").

As if that's not enough for you Mongol culture hounds, KPC has just added a really wonderful surprise, an exhibition entitled "The Art of Mongolian Calligraphy," and reception for the artist, Jalair Dovdon Batbayar, to follow Basaan Lama's blessing. Now, I've been to Batbayar's gallery here in in UB. I'm crazy about calligraphy generally, but Batbayar's artistry is truly out of sight. Think I'm exaggerating (and, really, given my track record, who could blame you)? Dig this (the image to the left is the Mongolian word for "Spring" -- "Khavar" -- rendered as a crane). Batbayar and his work are currently touring the U.S. (possibly for the first time, tho I think some of his work was displayed at the National Geographic Museum last year) supported by the Embassy of Mongolia and the Friends of Mongolia. Regular DODR commenter Ariel is deeply involved in the latter, as well as this tour. My thanks to him for helping organizing this. Join him and all the other hipsters between 5-8pm on the 24th.

February 15, 2007

Somehow in my tearing around taking care of last-minute errands I can't find the internet card I like, so I'm zipping off a quickie at a nearby internet cafe.

Tomorrow morning I head to the Eastern Gobi again, to join my buds there for their Tsagaan Sar (White Month -- Mongolian New Year) celebrations. I'll be gone a week or so, not near internet, or even electricity and plumbing for that matter. Will resume the carnival on or about the 25th, will stories and pix from Khamriin Khiid.

February 14, 2007

As you might imagine, Valentine’s Day is not exactly highlighted with a scarlet lipstick heart on the monastic calendar (truth be told, however, I’ve been invited to dine this evening with not one, but two lovely ladies and I’m bringing chocolates!). Nonetheless, there is a lot of love in my apartment, transcending even the boundaries of traditional species rivalry. I’ve been accumulating inspiring images of this evolving bond. I figured this was an appropriate day to share with you a visual essay on how this love expresses itself, like, several times each day and night until daddy’s had it up to here and shouts, “Mooj! Floki! Would you two knock it off with the lovemaking already!?” Remember, what you’re about to see, from the first bashful approach, to the passionate intertwining of two destined souls, just looks like ferocious, no-holds-barred combat to the last bitter death-rattle. Underneath, where it counts, it’s true love. First, the Gentle Lubbers:

Then, the Lub. Cue The Cramps' "You've Got Good Taste" or The Stooges' "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog," but not Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" because he's become a total right-wing, gun-loving, mink-farming, fascist galoot:

February 12, 2007

In a comment to my "Fundamentally in Error" post, Christian urges that it be translated into Mongolian. I'm not opposed to such things, but there are inherent risks. For example, what if the translation from English to Mongolian resembled this translation at olloo.mn from Mongolian to "English"? In transcribing a short interview with Mongolian "prelate" Z. Sanjdorj about what to expect in the coming Asian New Year of the Fire Pig (we've been joking and calling it the "Pork Barbecue Year"), you get gems like this, begging knowledge about what on earth the original Mongolian could have been:

"Is there any bewared thing for people even though, it is good year?"

"Of course, if people open their month such the golden swine year, it will not cherish its output and moral merit."

Easy for you to say.

Several of us UB ex-pats have begged Olloo to hire competent translators for its English site, especially since the lamented demise of MonInfo. But maybe we should rethink that, since we'd be denying ourselves some real comedy of golden complexion.

There’s a declaration I love that I heard from my father, and that he attributes to the Spanish. They say, says he, “How marvelous it is to do nothing…and then rest afterward.”

That pretty much characterizes my day today, to the point where I had been about to blog about my countryside jaunt with the boys last Friday, and I see that the World Wide Wanderer has taken care of that for me also. Whew! Time to rest.

But Brother Don, even though in his lavishly illustrated recap of the trip he took care to use the word “salubrious” not once but twice, adorn me with epithets hitherto unheard anywhere in proximity to my name, and even inadvertently coin a new cocktail moniker – Green Tara on the Rocks (gotta use Crème de Menthe or Midori I suppose) – he neglected to cover the heart-essence of any walk outdoors: the birds. So, OK. I got a little work to do.

By anyone’s standard, the winter air pollution in Ulaanbaatar has been catastrophic this year, as one of Don's photos, um, makes clear. Takes me ten minutes to clear my nasal passages each morning, the results of which, if sent to the lab, would occasion an exhaustive two-part series in The Lancet, believe me (no photo – I do have vows of compassion). Thus, when Axel Braunlich emailed me about the cool birds he’d recently seen out at the Manzushir Khiid ruins, I took a quick internet check to see how far the temps would be above zero (more than several, as it turned out), rang Don up and found he was game like he almost always is, and we were on. Our party expanded with the addition of employment-challenged, wife-wants-him-out-from-under-foot Luke Distelhorst (not entirely fair – he’s working with a Mongolian film company this week to produce a documentary about none other than UB’s air pollution, and is stringing for Reuters) and my main Mongolian birding man Uugan, who serendipitously was on Tsagaan Sar break from his teaching gig at the Agricultural University. Uugan’s van and binoculars, less fortunately, were with his herdsman brother in Sukhbaatar Province, but no matter. Don had bins. We would make do.

Expecting a warmer-than-average, sunny morning, we arrived instead to a low pewter sky and steady, light snow. But the chilly air felt fresh in our lungs, we were immediately greeted by a raucous chorus of Spotted (Eurasian) Nutcrackers, and my mood elevated dramatically. Uugan had brought an excellent Nikon spotting scope (no birder says “telescope” and the cool ones just say “scope,” both as a noun and a verb) and a digital camera. Combining the two (what birders call “digi-scoping” – there’s no end to the peculiar lingo of obsessive pastimes, is there?) he got this shot of a nutcracker doing what they do best, being as they are members of the crow family – opening their yap and squawking:

Turns out the nutcrackers were everywhere, in loose, noisy flocks of up to several dozen, making them, in birding jargon, the “trash bird” of the day.

Uugan and I quickly drifted away from Don and Luke. They wanted to hike and explore. “Birding,” which was at the top of our agenda, can in no way be confused with “hiking.” It’s a slow, zig-zaggy, intuitive activity that can most often be characterized as “standing there.” Uugan caught me demonstrating the classic pose:

It may be that I was drinking in my 600th lifer, charming and energetic White-winged Crossbills (called Two-barred in Eurasia) which, with their Red (Common) Crossbill cousins, we discovered among the larch and spruce enthusiastically tearing into as many pine cone seeds as they could stuff down their little gullets. They weren’t at all distressed by our presence, so Uugan immortalized one of the females. This was a new bird for him, too, as he almost never goes out in winter being, you know, smart:

Having worked the upper slopes above the ruins, and deciding we weren’t likely to find a more exciting bird than the Ural Owl we flushed up, we returned to the grove near the parking lot, since it bore ample evidence of diligent woodpecker activity.

Winter is a great time to gawk at woodpeckers, perhaps my favorite species of bird. There’s no foliage to block your view, the little buggers often call in what might be termed “hysterical exuberance,” and they tend to peck wood, the giveaway sound that carries well in crisp air. In other words, they’re quite easy to find. Axel said he had seen four species within 50 meters: Black, Great Spotted, Lesser Spotted, and Grey-headed. Oddly, of these we only saw one Great Spotted, perhaps because it was early afternoon, the time of reduced bird activity birders call “the doldrums”. I had really, really wanted to see Grey-headed for another lifer, but it was not to be (again, in birding parlance, a “lifer” is what you call a bird that you see for the first time in your life, and then you add it to your “life list.” If you fail to see the bird, you say you “dipped on it.” This last has a British “twitcher” origin, I think – you think we have funny phrases…). Nonetheless, we found a woodpecker species in relative abundance that Axel hadn’t seen: Three-toed. This was a lifer for Uugan, a new Mongolia bird for me, and this lovely cooperated nicely for him to get an action shot:

And, really, just like junkies, both Uugan and I have been floating on the avian hit the day gave us, and scheming when we can get out again. Where, oh where, is Carol’s package with my new optics!?

February 11, 2007

Nearly 2600 years ago, Prince Siddhartha attained supreme enlightenment, and as the one subsequently known as Shakyamuni Buddha spent 42 years wandering across north India. He taught the essence of his realization of a state beyond suffering and the path by which one might attain it oneself. This was his one consistent theme: suffering and its transcendence.

It was a time of great spiritual flux and energy. The Hindu Brahmins had ossified into a caste of elite “religious professionals” who guarded their doctrines and rituals from popular participation. Dissatisfied with this situation, a number of people ventured forth in the search for spiritual truth and a bewildering array of teachers and doctrines emerged, all purporting to offer the cure for what ails ya.

There were many groups of wandering ascetics, and as the Buddha’s community grew, it frequently came to pass that these groups met, and their respective doctrines and practices were discussed and debated. In the centuries after Shakyamuni passed into Nirvana, the evolution of Mahayana teachings occasioned even more intramural debates.

Fold in Jains, Muslims, and traveling Christians, and there was no shortage of opportunity for theological compare and contrast. And there was one important rule, without which such discussions would be fruitless. If one was to defend one’s view, one must have a chance to state that view accurately. If the premise of a debate was false, what could one say about the debate itself?

If you’re a regular reader, you know where I’m headed, don’t you? That’s right. Mongolia’s resident right-wing Christian evangelist, Tom Terry, in his ongoing attempts to trumpet Christianity’s superiority as a teaching and lifestyle in his online “Friday Fundamentals” series, has once again radically misrepresented the Buddhist teaching and lifestyle, this time on the subject of self-denial.

So, let’s take an unusual point of view, and consider Mr. Terry in an appreciative light as our helper on the path. He’s once again instigated me to use this blog as a forum wherein we can learn, if we like, what the Buddha actually taught and not propagate misconceptions or worry ourselves over how others live their spiritual lives. Make some lemonade, so to speak.

Mr. Terry sets his terms thus:

“There are three great differences between most religions and Christianity regarding self-denial:

Buddhism & Other Religions

• Self-denial is a means to spiritual enlightenment,
• Self-denial is a religious practice,
• Self-denial is performed for the benefit of oneself.”

In a word, no, no, and no. Let me explain. I’ll try to be brief.

How people consider “self” is a major preoccupation for Buddhists, for one very good reason. Clinging to the notion of self, taught the Buddha, is the very root of every suffering any being has ever experienced, period. If we hold out any hope of overcoming suffering for ourselves and others, we have got to deal with this.

But. No Buddhist would ever frame their practice as “self-denial,” nor would they consider the meditation leading to the realization of the selflessness of the individual as a mere method or religious exercise. And as for benefiting oneself, it may be that Mr. Terry is making a very narrow assessment of the Hinayana teachings, but even there he is in error.

Why not use the term “self-denial”? Because it gives the “self” too much importance. It solidifies the notion that there is some existent “self” to be denied.

The actual Buddhist approach is more subtle. The Buddha taught that there were false concepts that we cling to out of ignorant habit, and these concepts bind us to cycles of suffering and unnecessarily create barriers between ourselves and others. The most pernicious is the concept of “I”. Buddhists follow a path of ethical discipline, contemplation and meditation (our “means”) in order to experience our lives and the world as they actually are.

We’re so habituated to the idea of a solid, self-existent “I” that generally we never think to question it. But the Buddha taught that such a notion has no basis in reality. He suggested that we don’t take his word for it, but check it out for ourselves. Of course, he gave some hints as to how to do so.

He first pointed out the obvious, that our notion of “I” arises from our own being, not other things. But then he said, check out this “being” of ours. It consists of five “aggregates,” one physical and four mental: form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. He asked us to examine each one carefully and minutely – in any of these bases can we recognize that which we think of as “I”? If not, is there a findable and describable “I” separate from these bases, which possesses them as “mine”?

One of my favorite passages in any of the Buddha’s teachings is the rapidfire exchange he has with a group of his more advanced monks (called “bhikkhus”) in the Alagaddupama Sutra. In this teaching he handily dispenses with all possible views of a self, after which he sums up:

“ ‘Bhikkhus, what do you think? Is material form permanent or impermanent?’ – ‘Impermanent, venerable sir.’ – ‘Is what is impermanent suffering or happiness?’ – ‘Suffering, venerable sir.’ – ‘Is what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change, fit to be regarded thus: “This is mine, this I am, this is my self”?’ – ‘No, venerable sir.’

“ ‘Bhikkhus, what do you think? Is feeling…Is perception…Are formations…Is consciousness permanent or impermanent?’ – ‘Impermanent, venerable sir.’ – ‘Is what is impermanent suffering or happiness?’ – ‘Suffering, venerable sir.’ – ‘Is what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change, fit to be regarded thus: “This is mine, this I am, this is my self”?’ – ‘No, venerable sir.’

“ ‘Therefore, bhikkhus, any kind of material form whatever, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near, all material form should be seen as it actually is with proper wisdom thus: “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.” Any kind of feeling whatever…Any kind of perception whatever…Any kind of formations whatever…Any kind of consciousness whatever, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near, all consciousness should be seen as it actually is with proper wisdom thus: “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.”

“ ‘Being disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, [his mind] is liberated. When it is liberated there comes the knowledge: “It is liberated.” He understands: “Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.”’”

Now, on the surface this might seem to prove Mr. Terry’s point that all such spiritual exertion has been done just for the benefit of oneself. But there’s a much deeper meaning here, alluded to in the Hinayana teachings, but fully fleshed out in the Mahayana teachings, which form the actual spiritual underpinning of the country in which Mr. Terry and I are guests.

To understand and experience the absence of an inherently existent “I” within one’s own stream of being has the added benefit of undermining our fixed sense of “other.” As our rigid concepts of attachment or aversion to “other” dissolve, the plight of other sentient beings is eventually seen as indistinguishable from our own. Love and compassion flow in ways increasingly untainted by a selfish agenda. And as my own teacher frequently points out, if all beings are seen as equal, a little simple arithmetic will show that there are many more of them than there are of us. Thus, their importance and welfare must be more significant that just our own.

This gradual alignment of our thinking and experience with the way reality is actually structured leads us to the supreme compassion known as bodhicitta. We embrace a life that is solely lived in ways that bring about the temporary and ultimate welfare of others, in a way that’s no different from the care we take of the different parts of our own body. And, in a twist that I don’t think exists in Christian scriptures, we as bodhisattvas vow to forsake our “reward” of the bliss of full enlightenment, and instead voluntarily commit to return in any form, from the highest heaven to the deepest hell and everywhere in between, in order to bring beings out of the cycles of suffering. This vow persists until the very last one has been liberated from this cycle that we call samsara.

So, you see, the “means” that a Buddhist employs leads one to experience the truth of selflessness that in Mahayana terms we call the “emptiness of self and phenomena.” Shantideva:

“Since I and others both,
In wanting happiness, are equal and alike,
What difference is there to distinguish us,
That I should strive to have my bliss alone?

“Since I and other beings both,
In fleeing suffering, are equal and alike,
What difference is there to distinguish us,
That I should save myself and not the other?”

The “practice” is to work for others’ welfare according to the “six perfections” – generosity, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiastic perseverance, meditation, and wisdom. Shantideva:

“Directly, then, or indirectly,
All you do must be for others’ sake.
And solely for their welfare dedicate
Your actions for the gaining of enlightenment.”

The ultimate “benefit” is the liberation of all sentient beings equally from the cycles of suffering. Shantideva:

“And now as long as space endures,
As long as there are beings to be found,
May I continue likewise to remain
To drive away the sorrows of the world.”

OK, I wasn't brief. So sue me.

Mr. Terry actually links to some lovely passages from the Bible concerning selfless and loving actions on behalf of others. I hope he and others can see that they accord nicely with the Buddha’s teaching on selfless compassion, and perhaps that Buddhism approaches the issue from profoundly new angles about which they were unaware. In this spirit, I offer an olive branch. If Mr. Terry wishes again to discuss Buddhism in relation to Christianity, and wants it to be an honest assessment, I would welcome an email asking for my knowledge about the actual Buddhist view on the subject at hand. Whatever sources he is currently using are clearly misinforming him. I promise to respond without rancor.

If not, I would recommend he stick to expositions of Christian theology alone. The current comparisons are accomplishing nothing other than seriously misleading his readership.

February 08, 2007

I have a rather bizarre admission. My favorite bathroom reading is the copy of Mongolian Grammar I recently purchased. It’s complex but not complicated, and answers all the little nit-picky questions I have about concessive adverbials, false morphological homonyms, person-bound terminating suffixes – you know, regular guy stuff. I like it so much that it often extends my sessions much longer than truly necessary.

Anyway, during this morning’s appointment, my goal was to sort out once and for all a particular use of “for.” Later in the day I was going to present a new card reader to Erdenebat for his digital camera, and I wanted to say in Mongolian, “This is a gift for you.” I forewent the longer, “This is a gift for you and not a request for reimbursement because it was surprisingly cheap.”

So I beamed in pretty quickly on the section that would answer my query – you guessed it, “Post-positions with Genitive Case Suffixes.” I like the way the book is organized. It has lots of sub-sections with a little explanation, followed by a three-column chart offering English usage in simple sentences, then the Mongolian translation in both Cyrillic and Classical scripts. Perfect.

So there was my little section on p. 287: “тöлöö” = “for…”

First, I looked at the Mongolian sentence, since “tölöö” was kind of new for me. It read, “Есüс бидний тöлöö нас барсан” (Esüs bidnii tölöö nas barsan). I really only knew two of the words, so I glanced to the English column, and promptly had to steady myself from pitching off the throne.

It translated as: “Jesus died for us.”

Just let that sink in for a second.

And now imagine the converse. Pretend I’ve been hired by the Kansas Board of Education to compose an English grammar textbook. I proudly present to them my manuscript for review. And right in the middle of the Dick and Jane and prepositional phrases and dangling participles and such, I slip this bad boy into the section on passive voice:

“The non-existence of God was taught by the Buddha.”

Can you picture the pandemonium? I can, and it’s making me giggle a little. You know that the committee members would be beating each other back to be the first to light the shredded pages right in the middle of the conference table.

Man, there’s still a lot of work to do in this country.

But I can easily forgive that little nugget (very Christian of me, I know), because it’s balanced by other wonderful sections such as “Interjections of Husbandry.” Under the sub-section “Interjections of Miscellaneous Usage,” we learn that herders will sometimes shout, “Sheer! Sheer!” at their charges. This, we are informed, is “used to cause camels to urinate.”

February 07, 2007

Just fortified myself with a hunk of fresh bread thickly smeared with semi-crystallized wild Mongolian honey. Each ambrosial mouthful has been chased by sips of just-brewed Tie Guan Yin loose green tea (I know what you're asking – was this “Iron Goddess of Mercy” tea “monkey-picked”?). This, or something like it, must be the daily fare in Tushita Heaven.

I’m celebrating, you see. Following months of fruitless scheming, wheedling, and cajoling, I have finally gotten my hands on photographs of the eight Mongolian boys we sponsored to go to India. Looking at the pix, I suspect that the Powers That Be simply hamstrung me until photos could be had of them actually in India. Much more impactful, as you'll see.

And why, exactly, are we shipping Mongolians to India?

{Can’t help myself – this just reminded me of an old Red Skelton bit. He joked, “I saw an ad last week that said, ‘For only 25 cents a day, you can feed a child in India.’ So I sent my kids.”}

Well, this question steers us into the choppy waters of comparing holocausts, but it’s important to understand.

The first thing to know is that Mongolia and Tibet are twin spiritual brothers. They are the only two major countries in the world to create a culture based on the Vajrayana, or Tantric Buddhism, that flowed out of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent during the latter centuries of the first millennium CE and spilling a bit into the next. The troubles for them, like almost everyone else on the planet, were to fall like hail in the 20th century.

By now, most everyone knows a little something about the horrors visited upon the Tibetan people by the Communist Chinese who invaded and occupied that land in the late 1950’s. The worst of it was to come a decade later, during the time of extreme ideological fanaticism in China known as the Cultural Revolution. Mass murder and torture of Tibetans, wholesale looting and demolition of the monasteries and their contents, environmental devastation, famine, the whole lovely smorgasbord.

But why do we know so many details about this? Because tens of thousands of Tibetans have managed the unimaginably arduous escape over the Himalayan Mountains into countries that accept them as refugees – Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and India – and have documented the sordid tale.

Why do we know so little about the same holocaust inflicted on Mongolian Buddhists a generation earlier by Stalinist forces? Because the Mongolians had no escape routes, having just ejected the Manchus and Chinese after a bitter struggle.

So. The Tibetans, little by little, have preserved and built up their culture in exile over the past two generations. They benefited greatly by a segment of the Western population that just happened to be ripe to embrace and digest the teachings of its lamas, and of course because of their incomparable global ambassador, the Dalai Lama himself.

Thus, although Mongolia as a nation has emerged since 1990 from behind its thick iron curtain into long-awaited freedom, it is the Tibetans, without a nation of their own, who have managed to nurture the lion’s share of the Vajrayana culture the two peoples share.

What we’ve been asked to do here in Mongolia is to cooperate with the renaissance of the traditions of Padmasambhava, known in Tibet and the Ancient Translation lineage, or the Nyingmapa. Today, there is no lama who has done more to safeguard and propagate this lineage than HH Penor Rinpoche, who maintains his seat-in-exile at Namdroling Monastery in south India.

So it’s there that we’ve sent boys who have expressed an ardent wish to learn these traditions. They will stay for several years, perhaps as many as ten, to absorb the philosophy, language, ritual details, and practices of the Nyingmapa, and bring them back to Mongolia for the benefit of their people.

My teacher considers facilitating these young people’s education the most crucial facet of our work in Mongolia. I’m so happy, therefore, to share with you a few images of a small success.

Here are the eight boys as they are preparing to leave. The journey began at the Sainshand Station in Mongolia’s Eastern Gobi province for the 20-hour train ride to Beijing.

From Beijing, they flew to Bangkok, then New Delhi and a short hop to Bangalore. A further five-hour drive deposited them at the gates of Namdroling, in the Tibetan community of Bylakuppe in India’s Karnataka state. After a few days to adjust to dropping 3000 feet in elevation and gaining 70 degrees of heat, they suited up for an audience with Penor Rinpoche. What an incredible difference, huh?

His Holiness accepted their offerings and had gifts for them in return. Then he bestowed on them the five special genyen precepts for those wearing robes, which will form the basis of their discipline while they're there: not to intentionally take the life of any sentient being; not to take anything you know to belong to another; not to utter anything you know not to be true; not to engage in any sexual conduct; and to refrain from any intoxicants. Here they are in His Holiness’ house:

I was told that His Holiness said that he was pleased with the three Mongolians already in residence at Namdroling, two of whom we sponsored, and had arranged special housing so that all eleven could stay together. He said that if many more Mongolians come, he will build a special college just for them. Here are the eleven, along with their able chaperone Erdenebat (far left) and one of the Tibetans:

And here they are in one of the monastery courtyards, holding up what I guess are photos and other things brought from home:

And here is one of the littlest guys. He seems to be settling in well, almost like he’s been doing this for lifetimes. Ooh, I’d pinch his little cheeks if he didn’t look just so serene!

Now, I’m pretty sure that the majority of the DODR readership is female and I hear a faint rumbling – where, dear Konchog, are the girls?

Good question, and since I am my mama lama’s monk, I posed exactly that to Altangerel when we had dinner the other week. He replied that there are girls who want to go, but that he just wasn’t confident about their safety.

Well, when I go down to see him for Tsagaan Sar, I will put his mind at ease.

I was staying at Namdroling in early 1991 when the first Tibetan nuns, exhausted and sick from their escape from Tibet, showed up literally at Penor Rinpoche’s doorstep. He housed them in a classroom and, seeing the future as he does, set the wheels in motion for the construction of a large nunnery. Today there are several hundred nuns under his care, receiving the exact same education and training as the monks. Fortunately, one of them is Canadian, Ani Damchoe Wongmo. Double fortunately, Ani-la created a blog last year or I wouldn’t know of her existence. So I emailed her and asked her to fill me in on the life of the nuns there, security measures, etc. This she did, with much reassuring detail.

So relax, ladies. As Buddha is my witness, this year the young women will get their turn.

And you, if you are so moved, may help make it happen. Plane tickets and stipends for monthly necessities rarely manifest spontaneously! It’s through generous sponsors that these young men and women will dedicate themselves to bringing Mongolian Buddhist culture back to life. And many of them live in situations where the cost of a plane ticket almost equals their family’s annual income.

This past year was easy – one sponsor paid for the whole shebang! But now we’re looking ahead, and would welcome any contribution you could make toward sending the next group to the monasteries and nunneries of India. Check out the new page dedicated to this aspect of our project here, and feel free to email me (link at upper left) if you’d like to discuss this, or anything else for that matter!

February 05, 2007

One thing I love about Mongolians is the unselfconscious way in which they can blend the sacred and profane.

Yesterday, I arrived as usual at the Mandal Tov for my weekly teaching. Darisuren said we couldn't get the larger room, so she led us down the Gandan Monastery road to her small house. We're chit-chatting along the way, and she mentions that there's a Tibetan lama in town who will be giving a White Tara initiation the following Sunday.

"Well, it will be in a big hall," she tells me, "and there's a ticket cost."

This is a little unusual so I glance at her and detect a little humor dancing around her eyes.

"But there is a way around that."

"Oh yeah?" I ask. "What's that?"

"Well, the event is being sponsored partly by those top wrestlers, one of whom also owns JEM International." This is one of the city's major distillers and beverage distributors. "The ads are saying if you buy certain kinds of their vodka, you get a free ticket to the empowerment!"

I look to see if she's kidding me. She's not, and I start laughing so hard I double over and have to stop walking. A vodka promotion to get connected to White Tara! Only in Mongolia.

I've called several friends today to try to verify this, but to no avail. Gunjiimaa, however, pointed out that vodka is considered something pure and often used as an offering in Vajrayana Buddhist rituals in Mongolia. Furthermore, we're sneaking up on Tsagaan Sar, the "White Month" marking the start of the traditional Mongolian New Year. Each family will buy vodka anyway to have as part of their festival table. It's actually taboo to get drunk during this holiday and the vodka is used sparingly.

I take this information in with genuine respect, but still think it's very funny to promote your vodka with a White Tara incentive.

Speaking of Tsagaan Sar, I've been invited to spend it down at Khamriin Khiid with the whole Danzan Ravjaa gang, so I'm going to go, maybe on the 16th or 17th. There will be much more of a religious flavor to the marking of this time there, and I'll use it as a semi-retreat. I've been told that the fourth day of that lunar month is particularly sacred to Danzan Ravjaa. So Erka and Sharavdorj plan to come down a few days after and together we are going to make a ceremonial offering of the newly printed Nyingmapa texts. All 262 volumes won't be ready, but what we'll do is bring the first volume of each of the six sets and offer them in the Temple of the Statue of 10,000 Knives. The rest will be offered at a later auspicious date. Naturally I'll take a zillion pictures and share all the stories with you here. To get a sense of the traditional way Tsagaan Sar is celebrated, especially in the countryside, this site and this site are really quite interesting.

And it looks like the trip to Bejing will be deeper into March. When my hosts said "after Tsagaan Sar," they meant really after. It's also Chinese New Year, of course, and apparently little is open in Beijing for the first month of that year. I secretly consider this good news, as my friend Axel has connected me with all kinds of fanatic birders who are filling my head with visions of possible lifers which I'll be able to see with Carol's incredible gift of new binocs, and the closer to spring, the better it'll be. First one is like to be either Azure-winged Magpie or Large-billed Crow.

Axel also tipped me off to birds he saw recently in the surrounding mountains of UB, including Grey-headed Woodpecker and White-winged Crossbill (never saw this in North America). With this incentive, plus the freakishly warm (for Mongolia) weather, Don and I are scheming to get a hike in soon.

February 04, 2007

Early on in my relationship with my lama, she talked about something that blew my mind. During a teaching, she remarked about our unusual position as the first generation of Buddhist practitioners in America. Naturally, our temple is completely open to whoever wants to come, and Jetsunma is a very charismatic and persuasive teacher. Frequently, those who professed a different faith would come by for a taste of Buddhism. Sometimes Jetsunma seemed to really touch them. She had the experience of these people coming to her and saying, “What you spoke about today was so inspiring but now I feel some inner conflict. I have a lot of faith in Jesus, but I see the truth of what you said. Should I think about converting?”

To which she would reply, “No.”

She would counsel these people to feel welcome anytime, and let the Buddha’s teachings help them be the purest Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, Sufis, whatever, they could be.

She went on to point out that Buddhism had become a bit of a chic accessory in the West, and that this was a drag. “We don’t need more people at cocktail parties casually letting it slip that they’ve become Buddhist,” she said. “They just want people to think they’re a little exotic. It’s a big ego trip. The last thing we need is a bunch of people running around declaring to whoever will listen that they’re Buddhist. What this world needs are more people who sincerely make impartial kindness and compassion the heart practice of their lives. Then we’ll have a better world. Who cares what they call themselves?”

She’s also said a hundred different ways that “spiritual arrogance is the #1 killer on the path.” This is not to say that we shouldn’t use our discriminating intellect to determine what kind of path seems reasonable to us. Of course we should. But to then use teachings on equanimity, love, humility and compassion (I don’t just mean Buddhist teachings) as a means to puff ourselves up at the expense of others? Well, is there anything more embarrassing that that?

According to the Mahayana tradition of maintaining the bodhisattva precepts, we sever our spiritual path at the root if we praise ourselves and belittle others, including specific injunctions against disparaging the spiritual paths of others. Thus, I was really dismayed to read a recent post on the website of Tom Terry, one of the more prominent evangelical Christians in Mongolia, entitled, “Friday Fundamentals: The Superiority of Jesus Christ.”

Ordinarily I’d just shake my head and let it go, especially since Mr. Terry's post immediately prior was devoted to applauding the hatred of gay people. I think Mr. Terry really believes he has presented an objective case for Jesus’ superiority to the other teachers he cites: Buddha, Mohammad, Moses, and Karl Marx (Groucho’s had more of an impact on me personally, but anyway…), which is in line with his goals of conversion. In the course of his post, however, he presents so many falsehoods about the Buddha. He even goes to the trouble, as the guest of a country with a profound Buddhist history, of having these falsehoods translated into Mongolian. So I think I’ll take a moment to set the record straight. This won’t be just inside baseball. You might learn some interesting stuff about the Buddha, so hang in there.

These days, there’s really no excuse for Western Christian apologists to maintain the level of ignorance about Buddhism that Mr. Terry displays. Between the internet and the publishing explosion of top-notch books by longtime Western practitioners, accurate, easy-to-digest information about the Buddha’s life and his three levels of teaching is abundantly available.

Nonetheless, Mr. Terry first states that, “Jesus birth [sic] is superior because unlike others, it was prophesied hundreds of years in advance … [and] because it was miraculous – Jesus was virgin-born.”

Hundreds of years, eh? Not bad, but dig this: one characteristic of a Buddha, or Fully Awakened, mind is the ability to recall every detail of one’s uncountable (except to a Buddha) previous existences, a facet of a Buddha’s omniscience. As such, the Buddha related that 100,000 world cycles (that is, the enormous amount of time from the formation of a particular world system to the end of its four stages of evolution and devolution) plus four Asankheyya (lit. “incalculable”) aeons prior, he had been a man named Sumedha, who had renounced a lavish life to live as an ascetic seeking inner truth. A Buddha had arisen at that time named Dipankara. When Sumedha saw Dipankara he was so full of reverence that he lay his own body down in the mud for Dipankara to walk over so as not to soil his feet. It was at that time that Dipankara declared that a long time after, this Sumedha would achieve perfect enlightenment as Shakyamuni Buddha.

As for virgin births, well, OK. But the literature well-describes the Buddha as a bodhisattva in the Tushita paradise with no karmic cause for ordinary birth deliberately choosing to be born into the world exactly as he was, knowing it was time to demonstrate the path to full enlightenment. It’s said that Siddhartha was born painlessly from Queen Maya’s side. If you really need exhaustive detail about the Buddha’s conception and birth, see the Acchariya-abbhuta (“Wonderful and Marvelous”) Sutra in the Majjhima Nikaya.

But. The Buddha did prophecy his emanation as Padmasambhava, who would propagate the Vajrayana teachings. In this case, no icky human intervention was needed at all. Buddha Amitabha merely sent a vajra marked with the syllable Hrih on a ray of light and Padmasambhava was born spontaneously on the pollen heart of a large, multi-colored lotus! Quizzed later by his greatest Indian disciple, the princess Mandarava, as to who were his parents, Padmasambhava replies, “I am fatherless – as my birthplace is the empty nature of truth. The womb of my mother is the wisdom of emptiness. I arose from within a lotus in the center of lake Dhanakosha. I am from the family that is free from the limitation of both existence and quiescence. I myself represent the spiritual attainment of self-originating bliss.”

Chew on that a minute. It expresses our highest view.

It also answers Mr. Terry’s grossly inaccurate statement that: “While all other religious leaders sought to raise their spiritual standing, to achieve a higher plane of spirituality or consciousness, only Jesus Christ sought to lower and humble himself.” According to Mahayana Buddhism, there are ten progressively more subtle levels of a bodhisattva’s realization. At just the first level, when the bodhisattva has the initaldirect experience of the emptiness of self and phenomena, there is no longer any cause for involuntary rebirth, and in fact, they gain the ability to emanate 100 forms to work for the benefit of sentient beings. The whole point of the bodhisattva path is the vow to renounce even the bliss of enlightenment to appear in any form, down to the deepest hell, in order to bring about the liberation of others.

Does this path accord with a further assertion of Mr. Terry, that, “While Buddha taught religious principles to others, he first sought enlightenment for himself, for his own benefit”? No. We often speak of the “Buddha’s display.” This means that all of a Buddha’s activity occurs merely as a display of enlightened activity in order to lead others to that same state. This is the definition of bodhicitta.

Mr. Terry also cites Jesus’ “sinlessness” and said that Buddha had rejected the idea of an inherently sinful nature for humans and that he himself had to attain a “form of enlightenment” whereas Jesus is the giver of enlightenment.

As Yogi Berra said, this is really misconscrewed. If you only read the Hinayana scriptures, you might come away with this impression. But the Mahayana and Vajrayana literature is rife with the assertion that the Buddha had achieved supreme enlightenment ages ago and his appearance on this earth was simply a life example for others to follow. And here is a crucial difference as I understand it. The Buddhist view is that all phenomena, including the karmic stains of previous non-virtue that Christians might term sin, are impermanent with no inherent existence whatsoever. Our ultimate nature is pure, luminous and free from any flaw or concept. The Buddha demonstrated that we need not wait for salvation and reward upon death. Through exertion on the path, all sentient beings without exception have the potential to realize enlightenment, the state free of any suffering, right here and now.

And what is this state? The Buddha offers a pithy verse in the Brahmayu Sutra:

“Who knows about his former lives,
Sees heaven [temporary god-like existences] and the states of deprivation,
And has arrived at birth’s destruction –
A sage who knows by direct knowledge,
Who knows his mind is purified,
Entirely freed from every lust,
Who has abandoned birth and death,
Who is complete in the holy life,
Who has transcended everything –
One such as this is called a Buddha.”

Again, there are finely detailed scriptures detailing the Buddhas’ sublime qualities, but who has that kind of time?

February 01, 2007

Gather around, everyone. Let’s sit together. I need to change the current tone of DODR for a moment and discuss something that’s been upsetting my stomach for the past few months.

Some of you may be thinking, “Konchog, you’ve got a big mandate in Mongolia. What’s with all the attention on one little dog of late?”

This is a fair question, and I have a pretty involved answer.

First of all, let’s face it, puppy rescue stories make touching and hilarious copy. I mean look at this little gu girl:

Oh, and all you single fellas? I hope you’ve noted the trends in the comments. Puppies are total chick magnets. Word from a monk.

But winter in Mongolia is a time when you can really think about things, and what I want to talk with you all about is puppies (and other critters), the Bodhisattva Vow, and war.

Very briefly, a bodhisattva is one who enters the path to enlightenment with the vow to never rest in the perfect bliss of the enlightened state until all other beings everywhere have been so established. This attitude of great compassion is called bodhicitta. When I learned about it from my teacher, I thought it was the greatest thing I ever heard. I still think so, and have radically adjusted my life accordingly.

Along the path, a bodhisattva cultivates what are called “four immeasurable qualities”: love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are neatly summed up in the following prayer that we recite often in one form or another, but definitely today on the full moon:

“May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May they never be separated from the supreme happiness without suffering.
May they remain in boundless equanimity free from both attachment to relatives and hatred of enemies.”

The basis of this thinking is equanimity, the consideration that we are fundamentally equal to all other beings, both in the sense of our wish to gain happiness and avoid suffering, as well as our ultimate inseparability in our true nature.

As a corollary to this kind of mind training, the Buddha asks us to consider something else he observes in his enlightened awareness. He says that over the course of our uncountable past lifetimes, there is not a single sentient being who has not been our kind, life-sustaining mother. Not one. That includes your spouse, the mice and cockroaches that invade your kitchen, Rush Limbaugh, the chicken you ate for dinner, Mongolians, crippled puppies lying in their own shit in the freezing stairwell of your building, and any other being seen and unseen.

Bodhisattvas help where they can, and seek to at least remain harmless where they can’t. Help can take many forms. It can be the direct alleviation of suffering like taking the poopy puppy into your home, washing her in nice, warm water, taking her to the vet no matter how many times or what the cost, and dedicating a big chunk of the next weeks or months to ensuring she grows up healthy and finding her a happy country home. It can be teaching others the logic of karma – the cause and effect of actions – so that they may create their own future happiness. It may be sincere prayer that even as you are able to help one small dog, may you be there to offer such help to all beings without prejudice, the positive energy of which is dedicated to these beings at the end. And it may be doing all that you can to influence the actions of your nation when disastrous policy seems to be looming on the horizon.

Every Iraqi has been our mother. Every Iranian has been our mother.

Even after the extreme suffering the current American leadership has unleashed on our mothers in Iraq through its ill-conceived occupation, as well as the physical and mental death and degradation of our own armed forces, they are poised to do just the same in Iran, and soon. I don’t say “might be.” They are. Mark my words. And it seems that Groundhog Day is a uniquely appropriate time to talk about it.

I’m fascinated with communication, and as such I’m a media junkie, with the internet as my drug of choice. As such, I’m very sensitive to how media is exploited to shape public attitudes and I seem to have a finely calibrated BS detector.

Thus, in the fall of ’02, as I scanned the matrix, all of my alarm bells went off. While I deeply mistrusted Bush and his administration generally, after 9/11 I was pretty agnostic about our attack on Taliban-held Afghanistan and the jihadi training camps therein. But then, out of the blue, the media suddenly buzzed with Iraq, Saddam and WMD’s. I knew from the second I heard it that these clowns were trying to exploit the post-9/11 American public mood and force an entirely unrelated agenda item – Iraq – into legitimate efforts to disrupt existing terrorist networks. I knew they had made the decision to start a war and that they would do or say anything to create even the flimsiest air of legitimacy. My teacher calls it the “bash to fit, paint to match” approach to life.

Horrified by the compliancy of the American media and Congress, I knew they’d get their way. And in their fevered rush, I knew they’d botch it. Badly. I pleaded with my Congressman and Senators, wrote letters to the editor, protested any way I could think of, but to no avail. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, incredibly, despite the unrelenting nightmare that is Iraq, deeply oppositional public opinion, a more chastened (I hope) press, and a thorough spanking in the November elections, these guys are calling the exact same plays from the exact same book and trying it again with Iran.

I can hardly believe my eyes and ears. The media is now full of planted (I guarantee) stories about Iranian agents “meddling” in Iraq, exaggerated scare stories about Iranian nuclear ambitions and capabilities, and the elevation of admittedly wacky Ahmadenijad to the status of Beelzebub himself. Exactly like four years ago, there is said to be an “intelligence dossier” to be released this week with damning information about Iran (update: my word, it seems somebody took their sanity pills with a truth serum chaser), and serious military hardware is being maneuvered into place. Not as a diplomatic pressure tactic, mind you, but because they’ve already decided to use it. It’s déjà vu all over again.

I also know the addict’s mind, having lived with it my whole life. Bush is an addict. Cheney too. Untreated. They are addicted to the rush of ordering the world’s most sophisticated military into action. And like addicts, they are self-absorbed, delusional and narrow-minded. They just want the rush and don’t think at all about the consequences to others around them.

And, like it or not, they’ve been our mothers. That’s why they need an intervention.

The Buddha explains that those who compel others to engage in non-virtue – taking life being the heaviest – reap the exact same karma as if they had performed all of the individual actions themselves. If we can summon our collective power to prevent this, we must.

I would bet my life that military action against Iran is not necessary at this time, but more than that, such action will create severe repercussions that will make the Iraq debacle look mild in comparison.

So I urge all of you, really I’m pleading, to flood your representatives’ offices with phone calls, emails and faxes opposing any unilateral decision by Bush (who, with his enablers, has incrementally pushed the executive office toward the position of monarch) to order the U.S. military to attack Iran. Write letters to your papers urging others to do the same. Call in to radio and TV shows. Use your blogs, even if it’s off-topic to your main themes. Join live protests, like my temple members did recently. Whatever it takes. Enough is enough.

Please raise your voice opposing more war! For the sake of all our kind mothers.

As my own teacher’s Bodhisattva Vow says, “Taking no thought for my own comfort and safety, make of me a pure and perfect instrument by which the end of suffering and death in all forms might be realized.”